Boston Bruins Face Tampa Bay Lightning On the Road, Open Dads Trip

The Boston Bruins are on the road Monday night as they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena for a 7 p.m. puck drop in the first of four meetings between the teams this season.

The B’s are coming off a 5-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens Saturday night at TD Garden in which Trent Frederic – who is skating on the second line with James van Riemsdyk and Charlie Coyle – scored two goals, David Pastrnak logged three assists and Jeremy Swayman made 20 saves as the team improved to a 13-1-2 record.

“I liked the way we supported each other in all three zones. We were able to kind of move as a group of five,” Captain Brad Marchand said to reporters Monday about the Montreal game. “When you have everybody together, it’s more sticks and bodies, create turnovers, create bumps to each other.”

Onto their next opponent, the Bruins will focus on discipline without sacrificing their signature grinding play against a Lightning team whose power play has been hot as of late. Boston has taken 10 penalties in its last three games, and while the impact has been minimized because of its strong penalty kill, Tampa Bay’s man advantage is one that’ll make them pay.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’ve got our sticks on the ice and we’re going through arms. We don’t get on the wrong side of them, on the wrong side of the puck, and start reaching,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said to reporters Monday.

”The lazy penalties, stick penalties, you take against a team like this — if we take four penalties one is going to end up in the net for sure just because of how dynamic they are.”

The Bruins will also look to limit Lightning Nikita Kucherov’s time with the puck. The forward is third in the league in goals this season with 13 and Marchand – who has played against Kucherov for nearly 10 years – recognized the threat.

“Don’t let him have the puck is really the only thing you can do,” Marchand said. “The tough thing with him is he doesn’t need any time to make a play; it’s on and off his stick immediately and that’s part of what makes him so tough to defend.”

In terms of injuries, Morgan Geekie (upper-body) is expected to still be sidelined with Danton Heinen slotting in for him on the third line alongside Matt Poitras and Jake DeBrusk. Matt Grzelcyk is set to come off LTIR on Nov. 25 and will be an option for Saturday’s game against the New York Rangers.

The Bruins have some special guests on the road with the team’s official dad trip. Montgomery said there’s an extra buzz with family around, but his players will need to balance it with “playing the right way.”

“The whole trip so far has been excellent. Now the sons have to do their parts and make sure the dads can enjoy themselves,” Montgomery said.